Reflections on Philosophy: Ben Woodard Interview

I truly hope that philosophy is not focused on humans, or on learning only for ourselves or more about ourselves at the expense of the massive swirling world around us. If this is the case then philosophy is too much like folk psychology and the self help industry in my view.

The spread of philosophy across the blogosphere has changed the possibilities of community (since geography is obliterated) but the ego problem remains unaffected ... Ridiculously, blogs are derided at conferences as being trivial or unrigorous in some way yet their impact cannot be easily disregarded. This is something that will no doubt decay over time and we can have our academy and our solitude at once.

Brent Vizeau: First off, thank you for taking the time to have this conversation. I want to begin by asking, where does philosophy begin? I will preface this by making clear that I don’t mean with Thales or the “Greek miracle”. Rather, I mean to ask about the motivation for doing philosophy at all, and for taking the approach/perspective that you do? I want this to be able to go a number of ways, so I will suggest a few ideas to help hone in on the sort of place I think this question could go.

It is often thought that philosophy begins in “wonder” or curiosity. Simon Critchley argues, instead, that it begins in disappointment. It has been pointed out to me that philosophers like Hegel have “one great obsession” that colors their whole approach. Do you think that there is this kind of pre-philosophical element at the beginning of philosophy? If so, what gets you going? What is your experience of first moments/motivations?

Ben Woodard: The two terms you mention – wonder and disappointment both seem to place philosophy in relation to enchantment which I think is a fairly common relation. Since the widespread turn away from metaphysics, I think that continental philosophy has become too concerned with re-enchanting the world for humans against the overblown demons of science and technology. At the same time philosophy is always about us (as the only beings we know of capable of philosophizing) at least to the degree that our own pathologies drive where are particular interests go. So while our own lives as a series of accidents clearly forms our own intellectual obsessions it does not, nor should it, decide the broader contours of philosophy for us either personally or collectively. 

Since philosophy is at its base thinking about thinking, the motivation for pursuing philosophy can be any reaction (whether anger, frustration, confusion, etc) regarding the formation and ramifications of different kinds of thinking. Furthermore, I think philosophy, at its most interesting, is an attempt to populate the noosphere (or whatever you want to call it) with new engines for producing thoughts.

Personally the motivation for me was confusion, confusion in the face of large entities whether economic, socio-cultural, historical etc. that didn't make sense when you weighed their power/influence against their likely origins. For me philosophy was a way to approach the question of what goes on in peoples heads to make x, y, and z happen especially when these actions fly in the face of any sort of realism. Basically my personal reason for doing philosophy is the question “Why is realism so difficult and so opposed?”

Reflections on Philosophy

As I said when I made the initial announcement, I’ve conducted a series of somewhat informal interviews with graduate students. The interviews are intended to be an investigation of the goals and motivations of philosophy students, as well as a way into a discussion about how we see our jobs as philosophers/students of philosophy and what we’d like to get out of this life.

Below are posted four interviews. I’ve posted them in the order in which they were completed (read from this introduction downward), but chose to post them all together so that they can be read with and against one another.

I’ve ‘lightly’ edited them, mostly to break up long paragraphs to make the responses more blog-friendly. You’ll also notice that I’ve chosen to preface each interview with a couple quotes that stood out to me. I should note that these quotations were my choosing, and I apologize to anyone who would have preferred me highlight different passages.

With that said, I encourage readers to comment on these interviews and to feel free to engage with respondents and other commenters. But, please keep in mind that much of what is discussed in these interviews is quite personal, and to a large degree, they are ideas that aren’t fully worked out. With that in mind, I hope that engagements will remain in the spirit of charitable inquiry.

Reflections on Philosophy:Michael F. Interview

“I believe that philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, wisdom being defined as the knowledge of the ultimate causes of things, the better for the pursuit of contemplation. It is sufficient for a philosopher to learn for themselves, and thus I am willing to extend the title "Philosopher" to non-academics, provided they display the requisite seriousness.”

 “I think that the intellectual isolation of philosophers is a side effect of the nature of philosophy. When you teach someone to philosophize, so I believe, you are teaching them to engage in an activity worthwhile for itself, and one without a further aim beyond its own enrichment.”

Brent Vizeau: First off, thank you for taking the time to have this conversation. I want to begin by asking simply, where does philosophy begin? I will preface this by making clear that I don’t mean with Thales or the Greek Miracle. Rather, I mean to ask about the motivation for doing philosophy at all, and for taking the approach/perspective that you do? I want this to be able to go a number of ways, so I will suggest a few ideas to help hone in on the sort of place I think this question could go.

It is often thought that philosophy begins in “wonder” or curiosity. Simon Critchley argues that it begins in disappointment. It has been pointed out to me that Hegel thought that philosophers have “one great obsession” that colors their whole approach. Do you think that there is this kind of pre-philosophical element at the beginning of philosophy? If so, what gets you going? What is your experience of first moments/motivations?

Michael F: I think there is a pre-philosophical element at the beginning of philosophy, one that may happen to almost everyone, but which can be either encouraged or stifled. Whatever it is, it happens much more strongly to some people than to others. Curiosity and wonder are not the right terms to describe it. Curiosity can be sated by an explanation of the phenomenon in question (Q: What are clouds made of? A: Water vapour condensed around dust particles which then clump together). Wonder is a mute state of appreciation, an aesthetic attitude towards being more appropriate to a religious mystic or an artist than to a philosopher. Wonder, for me, has never brought with the question "Why?"

My personal pre-philosophical beginning is one that remains with me still - it is a recurrent sense of uncanniness, of the world seeming strange and contingent. It raises the question "Why?" in its most ultimate sense. Why is there something rather than nothing, why this something rather than other possible somethings, and how is it possible for parts of this something to reflect upon both themselves and the whole? The thought this leaves me with is that there must be a systematic answer interlinking everything.

The second element that follows up this pre-philosophical beginning is the experience of contemplation. Contemplation complements the uncanniness, since it is the activity that most feels like it is answering the questions raised by the uncanny state. When I am thinking particularly hard about a problem my thoughts become quicksilver and fluid, but also highly structured. Ideas spin off from ideas and link together, forming larger and larger wholes. This state is engrossing and all consuming, and I can lose track of myself and my surroundings for hours. While the state is productive, it is also an example of what Aristotle calls (Nicomachean Ethics 1) a complete state, one that is done for itself. I don't want the contemplation to end, and am glad that the questions I am asking seem eternally capable of greater refinement and elaboration, so contemplation need never end.

This also explains why I think that explaining philosophy as beginning in disappointment does not capture why I do philosophy. Disappointment is a Pragmatists answer to why we do philosophy, as it is their answer to why thinking occurs. Thinking, for them, is an activity done in order that we may cease thinking. It is caused by problems and seeks their solutions. I do not consider my questions to be problems; they are opportunities.

Reflections on Philosophy: Paul Ennis Interview

“I would say that everyone should approach the tradition in two ways: one path should be straight-forward and probably pretty mundane. The other should be sporadic, and a little more intuitive. The combination tends to be effective and helps satisfy the twin demands of any good philosophy writing: rigor and originality.”

“Regarding what we ‘ought’ to be doing, well I don’t think it is my place to prescribe any kind of ‘ought’ to other people since this is not my area whatsoever. I suppose my ideal ‘ought’ would be something like staying true to that fundamental impulse to inquiry no matter the cost.”

Brent Vizeau: First off, thank you for taking the time to have this conversation. I want to begin by asking, where does philosophy begin? I will preface this by making clear that I don’t mean with Thales or the “Greek miracle”. Rather, I mean to ask about the motivation for doing philosophy at all, and for taking the approach/perspective that you do? I want this to be able to go a number of ways, so I will suggest a few ideas to help hone in on the sort of place I think this question could go.

It is often thought that philosophy begins in “wonder” or curiosity. Simon Critchley argues, instead, that it begins in disappointment. It has been pointed out to me that philosophers like Hegel have “one great obsession” that colors their whole approach. Do you think that there is this kind of pre-philosophical element at the beginning of philosophy? If so, what gets you going? What is your experience of first moments/motivations?

Paul Ennis: I really don’t know how to answer this question because I have never answered it for myself. I have no idea why I do philosophy though I do have a response to the (oft-asked) question of what philosophy is or does: philosophy is to ‘know why you believe what you believe.’ I suppose my base motivation for pursuing philosophy is that I really do want to know why I look at the world the way I do.

Certainly I don’t have ‘one great problem’ like Hegel or Heidegger had. I am jealous that they knew so early what they were trying to figure out. There is a whole series of problems that I want to solve but the answers seem to sprawl out across all kinds of disciplines. But I do take these ‘events’ of philosophy seriously. Even though the ‘Greek beginning’ has been hugely compromised and even the Enlightenment has come under attack for its quasi-theological approach (which Hegel had already accused it of in the Phenomenology) I still consider these fundamentally positive interventions into the history of thinking. That would be my shotgun answer but the core of philosophy for me is something entirely different.

It is a prolonged investigation of fringe, albeit rational, problems such as, but the possible examples are legion, the emergence of transcendental subjectivity. You have to be a peculiar sort to take this as a guiding theme for your life’s work, but once you become familiar with the force of the historical meditation on these kinds of problems it is difficult to extricate yourself from it. So I’m not sure it is a simple case of being motivated to answer certain problems prior to reading philosophy and then working that problem out in dialogue with the great thinkers.

Rather it is a kind of slow accretion where you don’t have a problem to sort out but then through reading great thinkers you become convinced that these problems matter. Then the latent ideas that you would normally have pushed aside start to bubble to the surface and you learn to take them seriously. So I don’t think there is a pre-philosophical impetus – more like a post-philosophical impetus if that is possible! Of course the philosopher can’t help but ask what is possible.

Reflections on Philosophy: J. Glass Interview

"You can't pick a set of rules for inquiry and systematically exhaust those alone because the rules themselves will go unchallenged.”

“I actually think that ideally a philosopher, in so far as he inquires, seeks only to live up to his own expectations and answer his own personal questions--he has to cater to his own interests and passions because only thereby will he do worthwhile work; but ideally his inquiry can be made available to others and be useful to them after the fact.”

“It's important to be discerning and not attempt to read loads of books just for the sake of exhibiting one's erudition; but it's important to do oneself the justice of becoming familiar with approaches taken by others to similar problems.”

Brent Vizeau: First off, thank you for taking the time to have this conversation. I want to begin by asking simply, where does philosophy begin? I will preface this by making clear that I don’t mean with Thales or the Greek Miracle. Rather, I mean to ask about the motivation for doing philosophy at all, and for taking the approach/perspective that you do? I want this to be able to go a number of ways, so I will suggest a few ideas to help hone in on the sort of place I think this question could go.

It is often thought that philosophy begins in “wonder” or curiosity. Simon Critchley argues that it begins in disappointment. It has been pointed out to me that Hegel had “one great obsession” that colored his whole approach. Do you think that there is this kind of pre-philosophical element at the beginning of philosophy? If so, what gets you going? What is your experience of first moments/motivations? 

J. Glass: The embarrassing answer as to why I got into philosophy--which I'd appreciate you keeping to yourself lest my emo image around the department get further out of hand--is... When I was a kid I was overly afraid of death and thought about it constantly. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and there seemed to be a lot of pressure to do it right--since I was so obsessed with not dying for nothing. Everything practical seemed trivial on a sort of cosmic scale. Philosophy seemed to be the most promising in that it might allow me insight into life and a life-path.

When I started I was really into philosophy of space and time because it seemed like that could really reveal the secrets of the universe--I was a bit of a positivist. And then I realized that that wouldn't do and some metaphysics--further than space and time--was needed. And then I figured that personal identity would solve my problems: if I knew what exactly a person was--i.e., what I am--then I could figure out what my existential issues were and what I should be doing. If one could know exactly what a person is, one could know exactly what a person should do.

And then finally I figured that the problem was in the 'should' and value seemed to stand at the bottom of all my problems--including my previous fear of death, which had in the meantime mostly been shirked due to my busyness with school and wanting to get a job as a professor eventually.

So all of my philosophical endeavours have been a really selfish, sometimes-government-funded quest to sort out my own existential crises. And even my current research isn't really an exception.

Reflections on Philosophy: David Pitcher Interview

“The philosopher is the one who considers wonder's lack of linguistic expression a deficiency or form of ignorance, and is pressed to render this experience in language, so that it might be understood, communicated, and related to concepts and other truths. Philosophy, then, begins in wonder and ends in ponder.” 

“Philosophers are not merely clerics of language and servants to concepts - they must always be capable of returning to the source of signification, and guiding others to return to the same source. A good work, then, would, out of these deep and tortuous clouds of symbols, fulgurate down to the ground like a lightning strike, and make the world shine brilliantly for a scattered audience, if only for a moment.”

Brent Vizeau: First off, thank you for taking the time to have this conversation. I want to begin by asking, where does philosophy begin? I will preface this by making clear that I don’t mean with Thales or the “Greek miracle”. Rather, I mean to ask about the motivation for doing philosophy at all, and for taking the approach/perspective that you do? I want this to be able to go a number of ways, so I will suggest a few ideas to help hone in on the sort of place I think this question could go.

It is often thought that philosophy begins in “wonder” or curiosity. Simon Critchley argues, instead, that it begins in disappointment. It has been pointed out to me that philosophers like Hegel have “one great obsession” that colors their whole approach. Do you think that there is this kind of pre-philosophical element at the beginning of philosophy? If so, what gets you going? What is your experience of first moments/motivations?

David Pitcher: I agree with Plato that "philosophy begins in wonder." On my understanding of the initial moments of moving from practical life to theoretical life, one is confronted with an object (concrete or abstract) from which a truth or meaning is derived, channeled or experienced, but only in an inchoate, "felt" form. It is merely sensed, perceived, but not made explicit or coherent. Some folks may prefer to leave it at mere marvelousness (as in aesthetic enjoyment), and some may declare it a revelation or an oceanic feeling (as in "religious" experience).

Psychologists invoke it as catharsis and scientists call it serendipity. Poets may refer to a moment of acute awareness and problem-solvers exclaim that it is insight, inspiration or intuition. The philosopher is the one who considers wonder's lack of linguistic expression a deficiency or form of ignorance, and is pressed to render this experience in language, so that it might be understood, communicated, and related to concepts and other truths. Philosophy, then, begins in wonder and ends in ponder.

It follows from this emphasis of wonder that wonder is a necessary condition but not sufficient condition for the spawning of sophistry. This is the point at which discussions of curiosity and disappointment emerge - philosophers seem to have some kind of need for explication and a demand for elucidation. It may seem that I am begging the question by defining a motive in terms of a need, but the idea is that regardless of this need, wonder is the starting point. Human motivation is far too varied, obscure and irregular to consider any particular motive essential to any behavior, including philosophizing.

For example, one might be tacitly guided by her father's love for eloquent expressions, leading her to desire paternal recognition by mediating wonder with ponder. Another may succumb to bitterness and paranoia to the extent that, out of his hallucinatory psychosis, he creates a fantasy world that is masked by its sole tie to reality, viz. an indubitable fundamental truth. A vengeful yet cowardly individual may be dissatisfied with a priest's dogma, and channel his frustrated anguish into emotionally expressing his profound experiences.

So, there are a whole breadth of complex motives, many of which we are unaware, that lead us to our passionate search for truth. Nevertheless, if we are considering the utter beginning of philosophy, then it must be said that the first moment is wonder, and that other moments (grounded in myriad motivations) mediate the transition to ponder.

The Graduate Student Experience

I had never seen this video before, though I think many others have. If you're a grad student, then this should resonate well with you.

If we were to wait until we had read all the relevant precedents of any given philosopher that we happen to be interested in, then we would never get off the ground. Well, we might get off the ground, but there is certainly no way we'd ever catch up to our interest.